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17
[1909
A better method of calculating the birth-rate is to base it on the
number of women in the population at a marriageable age. In doing so it is
found that in Islington the average birth-rate per 1000 women living between
the ages of 15 and 45 was 114.2 per 1000 in the five years 1889-93, and 102.7
per 1000 in the five years 1899-1903, whereas in 1909 it was only 86.58.
Births.
1889-93 48,076 = 114.21 births per 1,000 women aged 15-45
(5 years)
1899-03 46,373 = 102.72 „
(5 years)
1909 8,198 = 86.58 „
These figures show that since 1893 the fertility of women at the childbearing
age has decreased 24.2 per cent.
If the birth-rates be calculated on the number of married women, and
the illegitimate births be excluded, the following results are obtained—
Legitimate
Births.
1889-93 46,568 = 237.7 births per 1,000 married women
(5 years)
1899-03 45,115 = 211.8 „
(5 years)
1909 7,948 = 177.8 „
These figures show that since 1893 the fecundity of every 1000 married
women has decreased by 59.9 births, or in other words, the birth-rate is now
25.2 per cent. lower than it was then. Such a diminution does not occur without
a cause, or causes, but as these have been discussed in the report for 1908,
they will not be considered now.
There is one point, however, with respect to the curtailment of families,
which is of great importance in view of the fact which modern investigators in
the field of eugenics have discovered, and it is this, that the eldest-born are,
as a rule, inferior in natural gifts to the younger-born, in a small but significant
degree. So says Sir Francis Galton. Again, Dr. David Heron asserts that the
first-born in a family is more likely to be insane, tuberculous, or criminal than
the others, and that, therefore, it follows that the tendency to diminish the
size of families increases the average number of such individuals in the community.
Another great authority, Professor Karl Pearson, not long since, in
a lecture delivered at University College, declared that if his observations were
correct, and he believed them to be so, then the mental and physical condition
of the first and second-born members of a family is differentiated from that of
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